1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to computer-implemented database management systems, and, in particular, to a technique for a universal image format solution.
2. Description of Related Art
The Internet is a collection of computer networks that exchange information via Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (“TCP/IP”). The Internet computer network consists of many internet networks, each of which is a single network that uses the TCP/IP protocol suite. Currently, the use of the Internet computer network for commercial and non-commercial uses is exploding. Via its networks, the Internet computer network enables many users in different locations to access information stored in data sources (e.g., databases) stored in different locations.
The World Wide Web (i.e., the “WWW” or the “Web”) is a hypertext information and communication system used on the Internet computer network with data communications operating according to a client/server model. Typically, a Web client computer will request data stored in data sources from a Web server computer, at which Web server software resides. The Web server software interacts with an interface connected to, for example, a Database Management System (“DBMS”), which is connected to the data sources. These computer programs residing at the Web server computer will retrieve the data and transmit the data to the client computer. The data can be any type of information, including database data, static data, HTML data, or dynamically generated data.
With the fast growing popularity of the Internet and the World Wide Web (also known as “WWW” or the “Web”), there is also a fast growing demand for Web access to databases. In particular, databases on the Web are often used to store images, and image browsing plays an important part in daily Internet activity. In data processing, there exist different image file formats for various application domains. However, since conventional Web browsers accommodate a limited number of image viewers, they can only handle some of the most popular image file formats, such as GIF, JPEG, etc. An advanced multimedia database, however, may contain certain images that cannot be viewed by a conventional Web browser. This inability may impact the deployment of Web-based applications.
Thus, there is a need in the art for enabling viewing of images of advanced databases from a Web browser.